


Between Two Wars 

1861-1918 







ANNIVERSARY POEM 

By a Member of the Class of 1865 

for their Reunion 



YALE UNIVERSITY 
June 18, 1918 



Between Two Wars 

1861-1918 







ANNIVERSARY POEM 

By a Member of the Class of 1865 

for their Reunion 



C V^' It 

VI 



y^L£ UNIVERSITY 
June 18, 1918 






IX 



Gift 
9 ISA 



We came to old Alumni Hall 
In June of eighteen sixty-one. 

That day we vividly recall, 

The tests we tried, the entrance won. 

Our youth was hasting to its flower, 
Pulsing with life in fuller flow 

And giddy with the thrills of power 
Whose later strivings none might know. 

The land we loved had known no war, 
The arts of peace had held all eyes, 

Above us shone a tranquil star 

And conscience dozed in compromise. 

But when our names were entered here 
The crisis of an age had come. 

A challenge rang — a fierce, wild jeer — 
To fight or mark the nation's doom. 

We saw it all — and then a pause 
To watch the march of vast events, 

To see the wreck of outraged laws 
And know sly treason's dark intents. 



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II 

We learned the greatness then of right 
In what it cost to make right stand. 

We learned the deviltry of might 

That clutched and hurled a demon's brand. 

Some learned so well they left our side 
And with the army took the field. 

How in our hearts their names abide 
Written in light on memory's shield ! 

Those college years, the four we knew, 
How big the things that filled them all ! 

How tense the thought, how large the view, 
How stirring was their moral call ! 

How much we learned from that one life 
Whose massive strength we saw unfold, 

Serene in storm and bitter strife 

With hand on helm right on to hold. 

The great inaugurals we read, 

The speech at Gettysburg we heard — 

Too blindly weighed what there was said, 
Nor sensed the reach of that far word. 

But in us deep the stamp was set 
Of Lincoln's person sweet and strong 

In lines one never could forget, 

His love of men, his scorn of wrong. 



4] 



Ill 

And then the June of sixty-five 

Came round and lightly dropped the bar. 
Like bees we darted from the hive 

And to the four winds flew afar 

To find a world in fragrant bloom, 
Mild airs instead of shivering blast, 

Fair skies for lowering clouds of gloom — 
The cannon still, the carnage past. 

That scheme to raise a proud, new state 
On black slaves' toil and poor whites' woe, 

With lordly masters to dictate 

How men should think and plant and hoe, 

Had failed. The Union lived as one 
And one as never known till then, 

With freedom for its corner stone, 
With rights as law for men as men. 

The tranquil star above us shone 
And we were in a fresh, new dawn 

Whose glow along the road was thrown 
On which we strode as men new born. 

People awake and all alive 

Were hard at work throughout the land, 
We started in to join the drive 

And sought how best to lend a hand. 

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IV 

We conned our books again and saw 

More in them than we once had thought, 

We read theology or law, 

We studied medicine or taught. 

We took the pen and tried to write, 
Prepared a brief and tried to speak — 

The kind of study was not quite 
Like Latin, Calculus or Greek, 

But those had given us a drill 
That proved of use in heavier tasks, 

A certain aptitude and will 

To get at things behind all masks. 

From ordered work we roved abroad 
For sport, or now and then for health, 

And many saw upon the road 

Who said that they were out for wealth. 

They talked of lands and forest pines, 
Coal beds and ores of highest grade, 

Of gold-seamed quartz and copper mines, 
Of railroads, wharves and foreign trade. 

Others we met who liked to dwell 

On people's thoughts as more than gold, 

On schools and learning, and the spell 
Of simple worth, unbought, unsold. 

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Companions thus of every sort 

In various fields of work and play- 
To most of us their hobbies brought 
And brightened many a sombre day. 

V 

We lived, we loved. We drank the joys 
Of friendship true and strong and sweet, 

Into our homes came girls and boys 
To make our happiness complete. 

We lived and learned. We reached out hands 
Fresh wonders to explore and seize, 

We journeyed far to other lands 
And sailed in ships on many seas. 

Invention's triumphs, growth of art, 
And science moving with swift speed, 

Were making peoples far apart 
To be like neighbors, near indeed. 

We thought the world was better grown, 
That light and love had wider sway, 

That mutual interest held the throne, 
And savagery was kept at bay. 

There was enough of cruel wrong, 
Of stealthy, grasping, hideous greed, 

Malignant cunning in the strong 
To rob the child in bitter need. 



7] 



But there were voices in the air 

That made to hearts their strong appeal 
And there were movements everywhere 

To give the weak a fairer deal. 

And all the while we seemed to find 

A larger, richer, nobler good 
In throbbing breast and eager mind, 

That cried for human brotherhood. 

VI 

Those college years of war had wrought, 

In some at least, a firm belief 
That lives are in the eternal thought, 

However long, however brief. 

With this belief a radiant hope 

That ugly things would better grow, 

That with large wisdom's broader scope 
Each shadier phase might fairer show — 

Belief in men, for men a hope, 
For those on all the lower planes, 

That they might move on rising slope 
To ever fresh and nobler gains. 

We thus were in expectant mood 
For all that rose within our view, 

On overlooking heights we stood 

And watched the vision coming true. 



8] 



This was our mood for fifty years, 
A world of sounder heart and mind, 

With heightened joys and fewer tears, 
A freer, gentler, wise mankind. 

For fifty years we saw this trend — 
Or thought we saw it — till we neared 

The last stage at our journey's end, 
When all at once a thing appeared 

Appalling on this verge of time, 

A sudden cataclysmic burst 
Of frenzied, unimagined crime — 

An empire mad, for war athirst. 

VII 

Not from life's lower planes have sprung 
Upon the world these terrors dire, 

Not from the myriads bred among 

The wastes where dwells an unknown sire, 

Not from ten million sons of slaves, 
Not from the countless Asian horde, 

Not from the haunts of murderous knaves 
Or lairs of bandits unexplored, 

Nor from the wretched and despised, 

The weak, the poor, the blind, the dumb, 

With minds and bodies undersized, 
This menace to mankind has come. 



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But from a people proudly bred, 

Drilled in a learning large and round, 

Schooled to the wealth of heart and head, 
Trusted wherever men were found. 

A few of these on shining thrones 

Of title, privilege and light, 
Crowned with the polished precious stones 

Of knowledge, science, genius bright — 

These few inflated big with pride 
Had come to prate of "superman" 

And other peoples to deride 

As drudging beasts to work their plan. 

Thence came the dark conspiracy 
That counted rights as but a name, 

That trampled covenants in glee 

And wrapped a frightened world in flame. 

VIII 

For meekness, love and brotherhood 
The Prussian spirit does not care, 

Recalls the pagan score of good 

And Thor who strikes and does not spare, 

That "good old German god" of fight, 

An apotheosis of hate, 
The Hohenzollern's schrecklichkeit, 

A blazing Moloch of a state, 

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Into whose burning arms are flung 

A holocaust of human lives, 
The strong, the weak, the old and young, 

Maidens and children, babes and wives, 

To speak the temper of a king 

Exultant in his royal line, 
Boasting that God is in his ring 

To prove his majesty divine. 

To such a depth may towering pride 
Plunge down in sacrilegious hate 

And in sheer madness think to hide 
The Satan in a garb of state. 

IX 

A people who have taught the schools 
To sweep all realms for one faint gleam 

And this to raise with magic tools 
Into a broad and healing beam; 

Whose masters freed the trammeled mind 
To trust its powers, to think and speak,. 

To break the slavish cords that bind 
And make the aspiring spirit weak; 

Whose thinkers quelled the rabble zest 
For empty noise and senseless rant 

And guided to the lofty quest 

Of mighty Luther, Leibnitz, Kant ; 

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Whose kings of music and of song, 

Bach, Handel, Hayden and their peers, 

Led instruments and voices strong 
To rhythm with celestial spheres — 

This people drowned in greed for gain, 
For conquest, wide despotic sway, 

And bending body, heart and brain 
To forging weapons for their day ; 

Employing spies against their friends, 
Intrigue in all the walks of life, 

While their diplomacy extends 

A hand that hides the assassin's knife; 

This people going on a plan 

Thought out with purpose year by year, 
Launching at last their brutal plan 

Upon the things men hold most dear, 

The sacredness of plighted faith, 

The right of nations to exist, 
The sovereignty of law on earth 

To dominate the mailed fist — 

And then the war, this crowning guilt, 
This latest, blackest, withering curse, 

With blood of countless victims spilt 
And ravage, ravage — always worse ! 



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X 

We thought the world had better grown — 
And this the goal toward which we ran ! 

Where now the hopes we long had known 
And where the faith we had in man? 

For those who walk the lowlier ways, 
Mingling their toils with love and mirth, 

We still may hope for brightening days, 
Confident in their solid worth. 

But for those others throned in power, 
Where is the safeguard of the soul 

To keep them true in each stern hour, 
A regnant conscience in control, 

To rein down arrogance and pride, 
To curb foul lusts and vengeful spites, 

To make wise counsellors their guide 
And with good will to shield all rights? 

Perhaps we may not hope for this — 
If not, the thrones of power should fall. 

"No more betrayals with a kiss" 
Must be mankind's insistent call. 

For now has come a judgment day 
And empires face a solemn bar 

And time's stern judge will have his say 
As surges on this testing war. 



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If power unmakes the man in power 
And turns his honor into shame 

They who uphold the monarch's dower 
Must share with him the fearful blame. 

That loyalty alone is sure 

Which makes the monarch loyal too, 
Compels him to be just and pure, 

Humane and upright, staunch and true. 

XI 

Our cycle thus completes its round 
Beneath a thickly darkened sky — 

And yet we know, beyond earth's bound, 
The eternal stars still burn on high; 

And deep within us still abides 

The eternal love of truth and right, 

Distinct from every sense besides, 
A clear and constant shining light. 

Against all lies the truth must hold; 

Against all wrongs majestic law; 
Against all hate loves manifold 

Whose height and depth none ever saw. 

The moral law within each breast 
Still answers to the midnight skies; 

The voice of Kant still leads the quest 
Of open minds and fearless eyes. 



H 



Where crawls the fawning sycophant 
One here and there beholds a man 

Who stands, like Liebknecht, adamant 
Though struck by the imperial ban. 

And men must stand by moral law 

In distant star and in the soul, 
Bowing the head in reverent awe 

Before the One who knows the whole. 

XII 

As move the years we fall behind, 
The rear guard of a vanished band, 

With wide humanity aligned, 
Receptive of the high command. 

As thrilled our youth at Lincoln's calls 

So now it is at Wilson's word. 
We cannot be a despot's thralls; 

For rights of men we still are stirred. 

To free the slaves was then our fight ; 

'Tis now to keep from being slaves; 
'Twas then to give one race its right; 

'Tis now to save the world from knaves. 

We won before; we shall win now; 

Not by brute strength, nor by sheer right, 
But by the gifts that true men vow, 

By souls inspired to love the light. 



15 



We stood upon the threshold then 
And saw beyond the crash and noise 

A better order hastening in 
To make the saddest heart rejoice. 

And so today we look ahead, 

Thinking how much is now concealed, 
And counting not the past as dead, 

Expect its fruits to be revealed. 



The sun goes down. Tomorrow comes, 
A day of splendor passing thought. 

We go from here to our new homes 
Leaving for others what we sought. 

George Sherwood Dickerman. 



New Haven, Conn. 
June 18, 1918. 



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